Uncaged
by sparkycola1
Summary: A/V Friendship, Protective!Avon, Competent!Vila, coda to Caged - from Volume 1 of the Audio series


**Summary** : A/V Friendship, Protective!Avon, Competent!Vila, follows on from Volume 1 of the Audio series in which I think Vila behaved admirably and was treated appallingly by the Season 1 crew, with - as usual - the notable, arguable, possible...? ...exception of Avon. :)

Brief Outline for those who have not heard the audio in question (spoiler alert): Vila gets captured and is tortured for a couple of days by Travis, trying to get him to turn against the others. After a couple of days he pretends to turn against the Liberator crew in order to get back to the ship (the implication is that Vila's plan is to help Travis lure the crew into a trap, then turn against Travis and run off with the crew). To Avon's annoyance, Blake gets distracted from finding Vila when he hears that the President is around, so buggers off to do that instead.

Cally finds Vila, the crew are "betrayed" by Vila as part of the trap set up by Travis (note: Vila even fools Cally, despite her telepathic skills). Things get a bit out of hand when the President shows up and they all end up captured (except Vila who is still pretending to be against them). Avon is tortured for the key to Orac, which Vila had palmed from him already to keep safe, but not for long as Vila seizes an opportune moment to rescue Avon first and then rescue the others. Vila does many clever things during the course of this episode which are mentioned in the story below.

In the end the crew demand, completely unreasonably, that Vila opens a door which is locked from the other side - which he does by recalling a long security code he heard Travis use earlier (which is quite impressive) and then have a go at him for his pretend betrayal. Vila points out that Jenna did exactly the same thing once and Avon agrees that it's hard to argue with him on that point.

* * *

"At the very least, Vila, you owe us all an apology, especially Avon." Jenna said, and Avon raised an eyebrow in amusement. He did not feel even the slightest need for an apology from Vila. Vila had saved their lives...and Avon merely made a note not to underestimate the thief in future. He saw a few interesting points to the little adventure that the others, evidently, had missed.

Avon and Vila had always understood each other - Avon wasn't sure why. Perhaps because they were both outsiders, misfits, even in a crew of misfits. Whatever the reason - he did not need 'defending' from Jenna. In fact, she was using him without his permission as a means to manipulate Vila, and he disliked that very much.

"Oh yeah? What about me eh?" Vila said defensively. "You were all very quick to assume I'd betrayed you." He sighed tiredly, capitulating. "Look I'm sorry I couldn't think of a better idea to get back on the Liberator. And I am sorry about the torture Avon." He said with a glance at him and a tone of genuine guilt. "Is that better?"

Jenna scoffed. Avon felt angry suddenly that the others were punishing Vila for his resourcefulness. It reminded him of all the times in his life he had been tormented for being intelligent, for not conforming. Not that he would say anything. He kept his thoughts to himself unless he had a reason to share them.

Blake answered before Jenna could. "Yes well you _did_ save our lives Vila. Thank you for that. Just one thing, I understand how you fooled the rest of us - but how did you fool Cally?"

The question got Avon's attention...he had been wondering the very same thing. Vila rubbed his eyes.

"Look can the interrogation wait until tomorrow? I've been up for 61 hours straight with nothing to eat or drink except stuff that was drugged!" he said it with his usual whine, and as usual it seemed to have the effect of being automatically dismissed by the others. Avon thought that if he were in charge, even he would have been a little more considerate to the basic needs of his crew. Typical of Blake to be so self-absorbed in his quest as to be oblivious to the people he was responsible for. Cally had the good grace to look guilty.

"You're right Vila, we could all do with some rest. None of us got much sleep looking for you, you know. And Blake we really need to get you to the Medical unit to see about re-dressing that wound."

Vila had slipped out before Cally finished the statement.

* * *

Avon felt exhausted, after just over an hour of torture and their adrenaline filled escape, he couldn't comprehend how Vila was still standing after 52 hours of relentless torture and the tension of pretending to betray them for several hours too.

He wanted to collapse onto his bed when he got to his room, but Vila's room was just next door to his and he heard a strange noise coming from it. A whirring noise. He didn't trust Vila, he'd never fully trusted the thief but since their adventure in which Vila demonstrated how proficient he was at deception, he certainly didn't trust him.

He entered Vila's room without knocking. He was hardly going to get at the truth by giving Vila advance warning.

He found Vila sitting on his desk amid various locks, using a dermal regenerator on himself. Without his shirt on his torso was covered in scars and welts.

Vila jumped when the door opened. "Hey, don't you knock?" he said with justified indignation. Avon was taken aback to find Vila in such a private position.

"I'm sure Cally would take a look at those." he said softly. No one had thought to ask Vila if he was hurt, if the torture had been more than psychological. All in all they'd treated him so badly that Avon wouldn't be surprised if next time Vila really did decide to betray them.

"It's all right, I can do it myself." Vila said, despondently. He looked pale and exhausted, and tired of pretence. Avon understood that it wasn't Vila's first time doing this, and felt that sense of kinship he sometimes felt for someone else who had been alone and self-dependent for a very long time.

He held out a hand, and Vila hesitated for a second before handing him the regenerator. Avon continued healing the wounds for him.

There was a moment of comfortable silence before Vila sighed.

"Two days." he muttered tiredly, "they all thought I'd crack in two days. The Federation tried for two years on earth and never got anywhere."

Avon remembered now, the rumours he'd heard about the young Delta thief on the prison transport ship, and the fact that all attempts at conditioning him had failed. The Federation had invented several new techniques and somehow, for some reason, they just didn't work on Vila. He'd dismissed them at the time but he was beginning to see the extent of his own naivety.

"Of course that's what they thought. That's what you wanted them to think isn't it?" Avon observed with typical astuteness. Even he had bought the act, and he was not an easy person to deceive.

Vila looked up at him questioningly.

"You may fool the others Vila, but you do not fool me." Avon wasn't prepared to admit that his own insight had been a very recent one. "You are not as weak or stupid as you pretend to be. But you can hardly blame the others for believing the act."

Vila sighed. "There's nothing special about me Avon. I'm flattered that you think there is, but all I'm good at is opening things and running away from things."

Avon thought back on the events of the day, after Vila had escaped for long enough to send a location beacon. Tired, starved, drugged, tortured and in pain...Vila had come up with a plan which he had carried out flawlessly. Memorising security codes, planning escape routes, saving their lives... was it possible Vila himself hadn't noticed that what he'd accomplished was remarkable? Or was he still pretending?

And then, the question that still bothered him...

"You deceived the people you have lived and work with for the last year, including a telepath." He waited a moment to let that sink in. "How?" He asked.

"I don't know really. Same way I get through conditioning I suppose. I just... think of what it is I'm trying to do, like 'get back to the Liberator', and then I put it in a box in my mind, and lock it up. It's as though there's a set of things I have to do to open the lock, things like show Travis what he expects to see, what the others expected to see too. It doesn't really matter if I forget what's in the box, I just know that I have to open it - for a while that's the only thing I care about. And then eventually I do everything, so I can open it, and then I just sort of...go back to being me. Does that make any sense?" Vila said vaguely.

"What about Cally?"

"At that point all I knew was I had to follow Travis, and I knew it was the right thing to do - Cally saw that. But she couldn't see inside the box and see what my end goal was."

"I see."

"Do you? Oh well I'm glad one of us does." Vila said. "You're right though, I suppose I haven't given any of the others reason to have any faith in me." he said a little despondently.

"I imagine it's useful for a thief in the dome to pretend to be harmless. To be quickly dismissed as non-threatening and made invisible. But is it useful on the Liberator?"

"I don't know. Is it useful to pretend you don't care about anyone but yourself?" Vila asked with curiosity.

"I wouldn't risk too much in testing that theory if I were you." Avon said coolly.

"It wasn't a lie you know, when I said I've never been afraid of you. I've always liked you."

Avon scoffed. "I've never shown you anything but contempt"

"You treat me the same way you treat everyone else. Which is to say you can't stand me, but at least you're like that with everyone. You're honest about it. Jenna and Blake and Cally... they act as though they like me when they want something from me... but the rest of the time I might as well be a vending machine mechanic. They look down on me, make me feel like a Delta among Alphas. You don't do that. You always act like I have a right to be here." Vila was starting to ramble in a dazed kind of way.

"Your intelligence is not Delta grade." Avon said a simple statement of fact. He'd known enough Deltas in his time to know that. There was simply no way they could ever do something as sophisticated as breaking through a lock. Avon had enough knowledge of cracking locks to know how difficult and challenging it truly was - the others had no idea, or they wouldn't dismiss the thief quite so readily.

"Maybe or maybe not but I'm still a Delta when it comes down to it. That's the way I grew up...I can't help that." Vila's speech was getting more and more vague and slurred as he went on.

Avon finished with the first aid and put the tool down. Vila could hardly keep his eyes open.

"Get some sleep Vila." He said quietly, and turned to go.

"Avon, just one thing...I don't suppose you'd get me some water or something would you? I would get it myself but I'm seeing everything in quadruple at the moment. Please?"

Avon considered for a moment. Vila looked like he could pass out at any moment. Reassured that he was not being taken advantage of, he nodded.

"All right, though don't expect me to make a habit of it."

"'N don't tell the others what I told you will you?"

"About what?" Avon asked as he gently guided Vila to his bed.

"Any of it." Vila said before passing out.

"I won't." he said simply. He realised he'd misjudged and underestimated the thief. He'd always respected Vila's skills, but until now hadn't respected the person behind the skills, even if he did at least recognise that Vila _was_ a person, which is more than could be said for some of the crew.

* * *

When he got to the Food Hall he found the others had gathered there, and were discussing the events of the day.

"I hope you see this as a warning Blake. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." Jenna pronounced.

"Ah yes. And I believe THAT distinction belongs to your glorious leader." Avon cut in, looking unwaveringly at Blake.

"You can't be serious Avon." Jenna scoffed.

"Can't I? Who was it who got us into this mess in the first place? And who got so caught up in the president that he risked all of our lives on a reckless crusade when we should have been focusing on the task at hand."

"We rescued Vila didn't we?" Blake said irritably.

"Did we now?" Avon said icily. "That's funny. I thought Vila had been forced to _rescue himself._ "

The others looked suitably uncomfortably so Avon pressed home his point. "Vila escaped long enough to send a location to us, came up with a plan which he enacted without being distracted by suicidal idealism, and ensured we all had an exit strategy which saved our lives. Perhaps you could learn a thing or two from your so-called weakest link, Blake."

Avon walked to a fridge and got a bottle of water.

"And I suppose you're not in the least bit angry that Vila's plan involved you being tortured, Avon?" Jenna snarked.

"Your concern is touching, Jenna, but no, I'm not in the habit of punishing people for being resourceful enough to save their own lives, especially when they can't rely on anyone else's assistance. You seem to have forgotten that Vila was tortured for 52 hours before we showed up -funny how you don't seem terribly concerned about his welfare. Then again, you're an Alpha, and he's a Delta. Right?" Avon accused, glaring at Jenna before returning to the doorway.

"How dare you-"

"Avon's right." Cally said decisively, and loudly. "We've treated Vila very badly. Ever since he arrived he's been the butt of every joke and derided for everything he does. He's saved our lives more than once, and proved his worth over and over again - but when it came to saving his own life we tried to criticise him for it, even though he had no other choice, like Avon said. I think we ought to be thankful that Vila really didn't betray us. "

"All right, so we'll be nicer to Vila from now on. We get the point." Blake said impatiently.

"The point, Blake, is that if I were one of your hapless crew, I would not be nearly so forgiving at being left to rot while you go off on a crusade."

"Is that an application to join?"

"It is an alternative, open to anyone who tires of being considered expendable by their own leader."

Avon left.

Cally watched him thoughtfully. She had felt the anger, the indignation, and ...yes, there it was- the protectiveness which didn't surprise her as much as it would surprise the others. Probably Avon himself hadn't realised that he had a fondness for the Delta thief that was belied by his words, but always hinted at in his actions. She had a feeling something else was going on, that as usual, Avon knew more than he was letting on.

She'd always found the pair fascinating, and so alike in many ways. She would respect Avon's wishes to conceal the truth from the others. She wasn't in the habit of using her empathic abilities to invade the privacy of others.

And then there was Vila... how he managed to trick her still puzzled her. And yet, he'd always been difficult to read. There were times when she had sensed that he wasn't as scared as he pretended to be, and still other times when he was much more scared, so terrified she could hardly stand to be near him for the empathic effect that rubbed off on her. She wasn't always sure what it was he was truly afraid of. But he was always much harder to read than Jenna and Blake who were so open in their emotions, and she had noticed that for someone who talked a lot, he rarely said anything meaningful or personal. Perhaps she would have to try a little harder to get to know him.

* * *

Avon returned, and without disturbing Vila, placed the water next to his bed. He pondered on Vila's words. Don't tell the others...that he'd been hurt, that he had a high tolerance for torture, that he could lock away how he felt so far that even a telepath couldn't find it...

He returned to his room and collapsed on the bed.

Vila really did have low expectations. He considered this to be a 'home'...but he knew full well that the crew didn't really care about him, mostly did things to meet their own agendas, not out of genuine loyalty or affection. It didn't seem to matter to Vila - he still saw them as 'friends' in some way, still liked them. As though he deserved to merely be 'tolerated' instead of anything more.

Regardless. Once he'd taken control of the Liberator and was the one in charge, Vila would come with him. Their skills were perfectly complementary, in a way that opened ideas to Avon of the things they could achieve. He was sure Vila would prefer the leadership of someone who showed him a modicum of consideration, valued his skills, did not run unnecessary risks, and allowed full rein to Vila's natural, criminal creativity. That was if Blake didn't get them all killed before then... he thought, drifting off.

* * *

"Where's Vila?" Jenna asked.

"Still asleep." Cally said.

"It's been 24 hours! I'll go and get him, his shift is about to start."

"Let him sleep." Blake said, a little irately. "He needs time to recover." he said a little more softly.

"Oh I see, so we're mollycoddling him now are we?"

"Jenna, he was tortured for 52 hours, and been awake for at least 61 hours and that's not even including the mission that started all of this. He's only human. Give him a break will you?"

Jenna sighed, looking sheepish. "I'm sorry. You're right."

"Just go and see if he's all right. But he's got today and tomorrow off shift work."

She nodded.

Jenna felt somewhat guilty to find Vila looking distinctly ill and called in Cally. After telling Vila that he had a couple of days to recover, she left and let Cally take over.

Cally felt guilty too when she realised that she had thought of Blake's medical needs, but not Vila's. She saw the bottle of water beside his bed and helped him take some small sips. The bottle looked familiar...did Avon get this for him? Surely not... she put that thought on hold for later. Looking around for any food he might have had she saw the dermal regenerator and frowned. She hadn't checked him for physical wounds either.

"Vila, can you stand?"

"I'd rather just lie here..."

"I want to take you to Medical. We need to get your hydration level back to normal. Come on, just try"

"But I'm so tired..." Vila grumbled, but did as he was told anyway.

When they were standing up she pointed to the regenerator on the desk.

"Were you hurt?" she asked, gently.

"A bit, but it's all right. I managed. Avon helped too."

Ah... Cally thought. This helped to explain Avon's anger at them. And he was right. How was it the one who professed not to care about anything or anyone but himself was the only one who had noticed, and assisted, and defended the delta thief through all this? She got the feeling Avon had stepped in simply because no one else had. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, she reflected. But still, she needed to keep a closer eye on Vila in future and not be too quick to dismiss his complaints.

* * *

It was three days before Vila was allowed to return to his room. On the fourth day, Avon found him tinkering with an old mechanical lock in the break room. He watched from the door as Vila put it down in frustration; he couldn't open it...his hands were shaking too much. He looked as annoyed as Avon did when he couldn't tackle a mathematical problem, and Avon suspected the cure would be the same too. A distraction, a change, a break from his own mind - just for a while.

"Don't say it." Vila said moodily.

"Say what?"

"That if I can't open locks I'm no use to you."

"I'm not looking for someone to open a lock at the moment. I'm looking for a chess partner."

Vila laughed. "I suppose you've tried everyone else already and I'm all that's left?"

"Is that a yes or a no?"

Vila sighed. "All right then. Might as well."

They started playing ultra-chess. After a couple of half-interested moves, Avon said in irritation:

"Play or don't Vila but at least put some effort into it. When you put your mind to it you can be quite a challenging opponent."

Vila perked up a little at the unexpected compliment. It was true, in fact Vila was by far the best chess player after himself and his favourite opponent for the unorthodox, creative maneouvres he thought up. Vila once told him that he played better if he viewed the game like trying to open a lock. Avon was glad that Vila played against him for real, he knew the thief let the others win to massage their egos.

They had played for an hour when Jenna entered.

"How are you feeling Vila?" she asked.

"Um, I suppose that depends. Is everyone still upset with me?"

"No I think you're all right now." she said with a small smile. "Things move on quickly around here. There's no time to hold grudges"

"That's just as well."

"Are you really playing chess with Avon?" she said watching them with amusement.

"I'm not delusional, I know I have no hope of winning, but it passes the time doesn't it?"

"Avon you must really be bored..."

He felt annoyed, as he so often did by Jenna's arrogance, but he couldn't really blame her for accepting the image they projected.

"It makes little difference. You're all equally negligible as chess partners." he said with boredom.

Vila grinned at that. They could always tell when the other was playing up to their role.

"Yes but Vila? You'd be better off playing chess with a table leg."

"He fooled you didn't he?" Avon said curtly, before Vila could respond indignantly.

"Yes. I suppose you're right." Jenna said coolly and left.

"Did you have to say that?" Vila complained, fearing that Avon had just undone his hard work at gaining forgiveness.

"She just compared you to a table leg" Avon pointed out.

"That's true. Not even a whole table." Vila muttered and Avon chuckled.

After two and a half hours, Avon won, as usual, but it had been as he expected, an interesting and unusual game. "Checkmate." he said.

"Oh well. At least it took you longer than 10 minutes" Vila said good-humouredly as he stood up.

"Why don't you try again?"

"Eh?"

"The lock."

"Oh. All right." Vila said a little nervously. But his hands were no longer shaking and he skilfully picked the lock open.

"8 seconds. Not my best but it'll do for now." he said. "I'm going to get some sleep. Thanks for the game Avon."

"I seem to recall it was me who asked you." Avon said.

"Well. Thanks for everything else then." Vila said with a look of gratitude.

Avon nodded, not quite prepared to admit that he knew what Vila meant.


End file.
